Determining Covering Array Numbers via Balanced Covering Arrays

Abstract

In this article we determine five previously unknown covering array numbers (CANs). We do so using properties of so called balanced covering arrays together with a computational result for these. The balance properties allow us to generalize the (computational) non-existence result for balanced covering arrays to covering arrays. Covering arrays are combinatorial designs that can be considered generalizations of orthogonal arrays, when dropping the restriction that the considered $t$-tuples appear exactly $λ$ times, and instead require them to appear at least $λ$ times. While this generalization renders the existence of covering arrays trivial, it raises the question for their optimality, respectively the smallest number of rows, the CAN, for which a certain covering array exists. The CANs determined in this paper were tightly bound for decades, but remained ultimately unknown.